Arabian Nights

Arabian Nights 00050
Originally uploaded by havatar

While we were down in Florida we went to the Arabian Nights Dinner Theater. A good show. I'd almost say a definite if you love horses or have kids who love horses.

Horses....

Princesses.....

Genie.....

Gypsies....

Cowboys and chariots?

OK so they bend the genre a bit but it was fun. I'd also suggest that the VIP package is worth the few extra bucks. You get to walk around in the main arena and stable area before the show and see some of the actors and horses up close.

STS-120 Launch

Just back from Florida where I watched NASA launch an old friend of mine into orbit. He got to space walk yesterday too. You can watch it all live on NASA TV which you can find on the web if your cable or dish doesn't have it.

And then there's my pictures...

An Interesting Wake Up

This has been an interesting morning.

I'm pretty security conscious.

Imagine my surprise when I pulled up my e-mail this morning and found 2 e-mails from blogger in response to my request for information on my account.

Oh, and someone opened an account at another site using my e-mail address.

Now one without the other gets my interest but it's easy to figure someone was fat fingering something. Both together.... well, that makes me wonder.

Now that notice I got about the new account at that other site included the login and password. The login is similar enough to mine that it could still be a simple mistake. The info from that account gives me a decent indication of who that person is and which part of the word they're from.

I've sent a note to that site asking them to close down that account. So if you're reading this and that account goes dead. Now you know why.

One of the reasons I like Havatar as a name is that no one else uses it. Is this a simple weird case of someone suddenly latching onto the same name or is something else afoot? Time will tell.

The Black Hills May 2005

The New Doctor Who

Who's been watching the new Doctor Who episodes on SciFi? I for one. Also many people I talk to.

Let's see....

irreverent....

funny....

serious....

Yep, that's Doctor Who all right.

So why do I hear so many long time Doctor Who fans saying that they "think they like it"?

Perhaps it's as simple as it takes a little time to get used to a new Doctor. That's typical. A new doctor, a new director, a new producer... that all adds up to some changes. Some subtle. Some not so subtle. It takes a few episodes to get your expectations in line.

I suspect there's another issue as well: The difference between writing 20+ minute serial episodes and writing for a 1 hour time format.

If you look at the old Doctor Who's you'll note that typical story was made up of 4 to 6 episodes, but the range seems to go all the way from 2 to 7 excluding a hand full of exceptions. (The Five Doctors was shown as one episode, The Dalek Masterplan was 12 of which only 2 still exist, The Invasion was 8 of which only 6 still exist, and The War Games was 10.)

Working with 20+ minute chuncks of time they could craft the story to be pretty much exactly the length it needed to be within the constraint of having to have a cliffhanger at the end of each of those time segments.

The new 1 hour chunk of time is really equivalent to 2 episodes meaning content wise they can do the equivalent of an even number of episodes of the old format.

What if they have an idea that would have been best handled with 3, 5, or 7 episodes in the old format? Quite simply, they'll need to squeeze something out or add padding.

In the handful of episodes I've seen of the new show I haven't really noted all that much padding, but there have been a few ocaissions we I felt like they went from step 3 to step 4 1/2 of the story logic.

Asking Doctor Who to be logical is probably not appropriate, but typically Doctor Who stories do procede in such a way that when you look back on the story from the end you can follow the logic of what happened from a story perspective. A few of the new stories have made some interesting leaps, and I think that's where that "think" word comes in when people say they like the new show.

If you want to dig into some Doctor Who stuff.....

episode details indexed by season.
The Doctor Who Wav Archive
SciFi Channel's Doctor Who Site
BBC Doctor Who Site (Notice that there's yet another new Doctor)

But honestly, just search "Doctor Who" on Google, and you'll find all the resources you could ever want.

Sorry about the pause

I'm sorry about the long pause in posting and responding to comments. There have been some real world issues that had to take precedence.

While I get my thoughts back together..... a few of my favorite quotes.

"The first key to wisdom is constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth" - Peter Abelard

"Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority" - Andrew Jackson

Court diversity of thought and opinion. Great solutions come from many different sources.

Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional.

"Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes." - Antisthenes

"In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place." - Mahatma Gandhi

"Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas." - Donatella Versace

"The buffalo isn't as dangerous as everyone makes him out to be. Statistics prove that in the United States more Americans are killed in automobile accidents than are killed by buffalo." - Art Buchwald

No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize a cat.

I've got a lot more, but this will do for now. Anyone care to share a few of there own?

"Holiday" thoughts

I must admit to experiencing a great deal of mirth when reading an article the other day (`Merry Holiday' to all and to some a Christmas fight). This article discussed how some conservative Christian groups were considering suing cities and organizations that had "holiday trees" instead of "Christmas trees".

Now I have to be certain you understand the source of that mirth. It is not that someone is using lawyers to sue over what they perceive to be a religious issue, although that is pretty funny to my way of thinking.

It is not that I want to see Christmas increasingly secularized (I don't) and find it funny to watch a futile effort by a bunch of religious fanatics to stop it. (BTW, I don't know these people so I don't know if they're fanatics, die hard believers, people of faith, or whatever.)

I find it funny that conservative Christian groups are considering spending a lot of time, effort, and money to save a great pagan symbol.

If that statement surprises you, don't be surprised. Especially if you're from North America or Europe. The cultures in these areas don't really encourage people to look to deeply into their religious thoughts. Look to deep and you might question. Search for answers to those questions and you might discover that most of the existing religious institutions pretty actively resist change. Bureaucracy and change is a bad mix. Change potentially undermines the foundation of the authority of the bureaucracy.

But it's the nature of life to change. The only things in life that don't change are dead or inanimate. Growth is change, and growth often leads to newer better understanding.

So let's ask a few questions about Christmas.

Why December the 25th?

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that Jesus was born on the xth day of the month of ______.

In fact, only 2 of the gospels, Matthew and Luke, contain birth stories. I use the plural because they are in fact 2 different stories. Maybe it's a simple case of which facts the authors chose to include, or maybe it's a case of the storytellers having different points to make. Still the stories are different. Go ahead and read them again if you doubt me. But first, forget everything you've been taught about the story so you can read them as if for the very first time.

If you take the Bible literally (I do not), you run into a problem with the December 25th date. There are simply images generated in there that are not consistent with a December time frame in Bethlehem. Add in the traditional pictures of baby animals running around and it gets even worse, although I'm more than willing to write off those pictures as detail added by later storytellers.

So where did the date come from?

Most of us today are so far removed from our agrarian roots that we have no concept of just how important the sun is to farmers. To grow crops you need good soil, you need rain (just the right amount), and you need sun. When your whole economy is based on food production, the whole society pays attention. Look at the pantheons of the old agrarian societies and you will find a powerful sun god, a powerful storm god, and a powerful earth goddess. You want to know what's important to a society, look carefully at their gods.

What does this have to do with December 25th?

In the northern hemisphere the shortest day of the year occurs on December 20th or 21st. December 25th is the day when people can first start to perceive that the days are actually getting longer. If the Sun is important to you, this is an important day, and important days are great excuses for parties.

Our forefathers in the Christian tradition (Sorry, but by this time the patriarchy had definitely take over) were not stupid people. It can be hard to attract and keep new members when there's a great party going on across the street. Also, at least until the time of Constantine, Christian's never knew if they'd be greeted warmly or persecuted. It didn't hurt to blend in. In their great wisdom they decided December 25th would be a great time to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

So what does this have to do with the Christmas tree?

Our forefathers certainly didn't get stupid over time. Even after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, it still had to work hard to overcome centuries of tradition when assimilating a new group into the Christian world. Many of the variations in how Christmas is celebrated around the world are in fact the result of various customs and symbols that were incorporated from the old ways to ease people into Christianity.

The decoration of trees is one of those customs.

It's that simple. The decoration of trees comes from a pagan background and was incorporated into Christmas as a conversion methodology.

If knowing these stories harms your enjoyment of Christmas, I apologize. Personally, I find knowing the story and details behind the symbols and traditions of my life makes me appreciate them more.

You may see these stories as examples of survival methodology or bureaucratic desire for growth, but let me present a different angle. These stories also present a picture of Christianity's ability to embrace the other and welcome anyone in.

Have a Merry Christmas,
a Happy Hanukkah,
a Happy Kwanzaa,
a Joy Filled Eid,
and a Merry secular mercantile holiday.

- Havatar
- One does not build tolerance by hiding differences. You build tolerance by celebrating them.

Thanksgiving thoughts.....

I used to get bent out of shape when I saw Christmas stuff in the stores before Thanksgiving. Now it's a moot point. The Christmas stuff is in the stores before Halloween.

Having a Christian religion holiday become a secular mercantile holiday impinge on a national holiday devoted to giving thanks for what we have deserves our scorn. As a Christian holiday Christmas is about celebrating the coming promise. It's about looking forward to what can and perhaps should be. It's about hope. As a secular mercantile holiday Christmas is about feeling good by spending money on things to give to other people.

Thanksgiving on the other hand is about looking back and taking stock. It's about understanding where we are and where we have been. While this is certainly not opposed to the Christian holiday of looking forward to and celebrating the coming promise, etc., the two are separate activities and each deserve to considered with our full attention.

As far as Thanksgiving's interaction with the secular mercantile holiday, I prefer the idea of contemplating all I should be thankful for instead of hurrying myself in to the process of worrying about obtaining 47 different gifts for people of various ages and interests, thinking about how much money to give to the bell ringer with the red pot, should I tip the garbage man, should I tip the mail person, figuring out which lights on the strings have failed and replacing them before putting them on the fake tree which the cats are going to knock over anyway, how to possibly take the rest of the vacation time I have to take before the end of the year while still getting projects done that need to be done by the end of the year, rehearsing for all the stuff at church, not to speak about already having to deal with the fallout from the fact that this year Christmas is on a Sunday and guess who's usher team is on duty that day.

We spend so much time trying to wring the joy out of Christmas in honor of a robust economy that we end up shorting the joy of Thanksgiving down to a single day or two. Why do we do this to ourselves?

And now the secular mercantile holiday has crept up on and over the quasi-religious holiday become a day for children to beg for candy. (Perhaps a better description would be extort for candy. Trick or treat is after all a kind of threat.) One wonders how long until it creeps past Labor Day. But then, just like Halloween, one also wonders how many people ever think about what the Labor Day holiday is about beyond having the last cookout of the year and shutting down the summer cabin.

The Christmas season is a make or break thing for many retailers. They at best break even across the rest of the year. In their competition for your dollar they stretch this important holiday out. They start the sales even sooner. The result is that they begin to rob other holidays of their time and their meaning. But only if you let them.

I don't do my Christmas shopping in October, but if I happened to see the perfect present for Uncle Jake, I'd grab it. But then again, if it were that perfect, I might not wait until December to give it to him.

Give each time it's due, but don't let the calendar rule your life.

Take the time to be thankful and to hope, and don't let the powers that be tell you when to do each.

And so it begins....

I was looking at my daughter's site (A 4th level Games Chick's Tome of Knowledge) and suddenly decided it was time to do the same.

I'll use this area to ponder ideas big and small and hold them up to the scathing light of reason of the vast public. We'll see which ones survive intact, which ones get modified, and which ones crash and burn.

It'll be fun.

I have a great respect for ideas both serious and whimsical. I simply ask that if you comment on a post that you do also.

Attack ideas - not those who posted and commented on them.

Push ideas to the limit - with the understanding that we're all doing this to refine and hone them.

Don't worry about political correctness - but don't insult simply to insult.

The official motto will be:

"The aim of an argument or discussion should be progress, not victory." - Joseph Joubert